Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme

Comments on the Remarks Made by the Committee

		    of the April All-Russia Conference

Withregard to the remarks on the preamble to the programme, I
      must say the following.

Inmy opinion, there is no need for a revision of the entire
      preamble. The plan for such a revision proposed by the committee
      seems to me theoretically incorrect.

Asnow worded, the preamble contains a description and analysis
      of the main and essential features of capitalism as a social and
      economic system. Fundamentally, these features havenotbeen changed by imperialism, by the era of finance
      capital. Imperialism is a continuation of the development of
      capitalism, its highest stage—in a sense, a transition
      stage to socialism.

Icannot therefore see how the addition of an analysis of
      imperialism to the general analysis of the basic features of
      capitalism can be regarded as “mechanical”. Imperialism, in
      fact, does notand cannot transformcapitalism from top
      to bottom. Imperialism complicates and sharpens the
      contradictions of capitalism, it “ties up” monopoly with free
      competition, but itcannot do awaywith exchange, the
      market, competition, crises, etc.

Imperialismis moribund capitalism, capitalism which is dying
      but not dead. The essential feature of imperialism, by and
      large, is not monopolies pure and simple, but monopolies in
      conjunction with exchange, markets, competition, crises.

Itis therefore theoretically wrong to delete an analysis of
      exchange, commodity production, crises, etc., in general and to
      “replace” it by an analysis of imperialismas a whole.Thereis no such whole. There is atransitionfrom
      competition to monopoly, and therefore the programme would be
      much more correct, and much more true to reality, if it retained
      the general analysis of exchange, commodity production, crises,
      etc., and had a characterisation of thegrowingmonopolies added to it. In fact it is this combination of
      antagonistic principles, viz., competition and monopoly, that is
      the essence of imperialism, it is this that is making for the
      final crash, i.e., the socialist revolution.

Furthermore,in the case of Russia it would be wrong to present
      imperialism as a coherent whole (imperialism in general is an
      incoherent whole), since in Russia there are no few fields and
      branches of labour that are still in a state of transition from
      natural or semi-natural economy to capitalism. Backward and poor
      though they are, they nevertheless exist, and given the
      conditions, may introduce an element of delay in the collapse of
      capitalism.

Theprogramme proceeds—as it should proceed—from the
      simplest phenomena of capitalism to the more complex and
      “higher” ones, from exchange to commodity production, to the
      ousting of small industries by the large ones, to crises and so
      forth, ending up in imperialism, that highest stage of
      capitalism, which is only now being reached in the advanced
      countries. That is how matters stand in actual reality. To begin
      by placing “exchange” in general in juxtaposition with the
      export of capital is incorrect historically and
      theoretically.

Theseare the comments I have to make on the remarks of the
      committee.